Murder, Weekend Getaway, and Ringing Ears

By Ryan LuckieUncategorized
The blog lives!!!  We are back after 8 months.  Much of the past 8 months has been busy at work and routine but good and comfortable at home.  We won’t try to re-cap everything but instead will jump right into some recent fun stories and experiences.

Also, I’m not sure if we’ve ever promoted it, but check out the Adventures of Ryan & Amanda page.  Link is permanetly added to grey bar above this post.

Murder Mystery Dinner

One of Amanda’s friends recently held a murder mystery dinner.  Amanda and I were assigned the roles of Mable and Mayor Biggs.  I got in a shouting match with a cocktail waitress, Mable paid bribe money to a lounge singer who falsley told her I was having an affair, and any time Mable approached me while I was having a conversation with a mob boss or police chief I got to say, “Run Along, Mable.”  The night was a lot of fun.

Weekend Getaway

Amanda and I spent the weekend in Asheville, celebrating her having tolerated being married to me for 2 years.

We left early Thursday morning to do breakfast at Asheville’s Biscuit Head, soon to be opening a location 1 block from our condo in Greenville.  We also visited Lexington Glass works and got to observe them blowing glass for a custom order of whiskey glasses.

Our late breakfast matched well with an afternoon Eating Asheville restaurant tour we had booked.  The tour met at the Battery Park Book Exchange and Champagne Bar.
 Amanda and I got there an hour early, of course. 


Asheville’s Battery Park Book Exchange and Champagne Bar

The tour was excellent, and allowed us to taste samples of food and drinks from 7 of Asheville’s restaurants including:

  • Cucina 24 
  • Table 
  • Blue Dream Curry House 
  • Zambra 
  • Creperie Bouchon 
  • Strada
  • Chocolate Gems.   
Amanda really enjoyed the Creperie, I really liked Strada and Blue Dream.  We won a gift card at Blue Dream and popped back in on our final day in Asheville to try their signature Naan Tacos.  We highly recommend them it if you every want a snack in Asheville. 
Creperie Bouchon might have the best fries we’ve ever had.  The Paris Sidewalk, ham and Swiss, crepe was excellent.
The tour ran from 2:30 to about 5, so we were very fortunate to have a few hours to digest prior to our 9 PM dinner reservations at Cu’rate, Asheville’s very high demand tapas restaurant.  Cu’rate was very good, but we may have ordered some of the wrong things, because it didn’t live up to the TripAdvisor and yelp! hype.  Then again we had experienced quite a variety of food styles that day and maybe were just a bit fooded out still.
After visiting 9 restaurants and a champagne bar the day before we spent most of our trip’s second day climbing Mt. Mitchell.  We made it up the 6 mile hike with a 3724 ft elevation gain in 2 hours and 38 minutes.  At the top we put our jackets on, huddled up in a sunny spot that was blocking most of the wind, and shivered for a few minutes as we ate granola bars before heading back down.  Just as were about to depart some drive up visitors walked by and we had them take our picture.  We then limped down the 6 mile trail.
After our hike we made it back in time for our reservations a Chestnut, which turned out to be our culinary highlight of the weekend.  

One of our other great finds this weekend was the Princess Anne Hotel.  The hotel was a short simple walk from downtown and was a really great value.  We’ll certainly be back.

The hotel had an afternoon wine and cheese reception and a breakfast menu that changes daily.

The historic building is on Asheville’s northeast side.

The day after our hike and our final day in Asheville included a tour of the French Broad Chocolate Factory.  We got to try plenty of samples and learn about their production process.

Amanda told me to smile.  This is me protesting the recurring situation of her demanding that I be in pictures despite the fact that any picture I take of Amanda results in my phone be confiscated so Amanda can delete it.

 Pearl Jam in Greenville

We made it back in Greenville in time to buy last minute tickets right behind the stage and see Pearl Jam in Greenville.  It was a very unique show, with Pearl Jam playing their 1993 album Vs. in its entirety, the first time they have ever done so.  My ears still hurt a little.

Our walk to the Bon Secours Wellness Arena (formerly the Bilo Center) capped off 3 days in which we walked 36 miles and climbed 570 equivalent flights of stairs.